Need help, wait times.

Okay, here goes..
I played the original Guild Wars A LOT when I was a kid. It was my thing. But I stopped, for reasons unknown. I went to get back into the game, to reminiss, over the summer, and when I tried to create a new character and load up old Ascalon, the load screen had 70-something-THOUSAND new patches for that area waiting for me that took about 4 hours to load. Then, when I stepped into another area, the same problem occurred. Any ideas on how to take care of this?? I even tried uninstalling then reinstalling the entire game but still the problem occurred. I really can't create a new profile because I would lose all my data from all of my games (I had the GOTY edition and all 3 expansions), and I don't have an activation code. Any and all help is really appreciated on this issue. Thanks a lot guys!
-Collin

since you probably uninstalled when you left all those years ago, you have to re-load ALL of the maps, missions, etc. This will take time! (if you uninstall and reinstall you are just starting over and over again).
you can quicken it up a bit by using the -image command (and since I am not known for my computer prowess: http://wiki.guildwars.com/wiki/-image#-image)

follow the directions there to add -image to your exe, run it and afterwards make sure you delete the -image or the game will not run! (I am sure there will be a few more users here who can be a bit more techie for you )

and welcome back

Holy wow that's gonna take like 2 or 3 days o.o but thanks, I never would've found that command on my own. Ill give that a shot and see what happens. Thanks!

its best to start it up when you arent going to be around so it can download....some start it up before they go to bed so it works all night, and yeah, it does take some time to all download.

Or get faster broadband ?

Would also like to note that the GW client will close after its finished downloading all the map files then just remove -image from the shortcut and load the game like normal.